DerekMartin.ca

“Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it.”

• from here, which is a subsite of this very interesting site. Evil that there even ARE RFID tags in the new US currency, but that it explodes when you microwave it is not a good thing. Last night I went to Subversions at Mama, and a Fullbright Professor of Criminal Justice from the US was there. She showed us a video about Mumia Abu Jamal, who has been wrongfully imprisoned on death row for the past 22 years. He was a taxi driver, award winning journalist, public radio personality, husband, father, and had no prior criminal record, before being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can read more here. I’m going to have coffee with The Professor sometime next week, I hope. We also saw a video by some activists from Spain. A few years ago they blocked a road to the G8 Summit by tying a rope across a bridge, and dangling 1 person from each end of the rope. The put signs up everywhere saying that if people drove across the bridge, 2 people would be killed. In a startling piece of the video, you see a cop walk right up and cut the rope with his knife. The activists managed to hold onto 1 end of the rope and save 1 dangler, but the other fell and was badly injured. It was really horrible. Thursday Feb 26th, 10pm Just got on a “Crobus” in Zagreb. Yay forthcoming 8 hour bus ride! Little differences: 1) no reading lights; 2) overhead not big enough to put even a small knapsack in; 3) had to pay $3 Cdn (15kn) to bring a bag with me, for which I was given a sticker; 4) Curtains on each window!; 5) Holyshit handles built into the back of each headrest, for use by the person behind. Is this a sign of how good the driving will be? Tried to get comfy enough to sleep. Almost possible, but ultimately not. One time I got close - curlecd up on 2 seats, then the water seal on the air vent directly over my head gave out, and ice-cold water came pouring onto me, soaking through both my coats :( It was the longest 7.5 hours ever (we got there early, at 5:30am). What to do in Dark Sarajevo at 5:30am? Well, I can see the outlines of mountains against the starry sky, so I tried to get to the high ground for a nice view of the impending sunrise. If you ever need a free place to crash in Sarajevo, walk towards the mountains. Every other home is bombed-out or abandoned. It’s startling. It took me until 7:08am to get near the top of a mountain, during which time I missed the sunrise. Whoops. I would have gone right to the top, and I really wanted to, but there were bits of old fences (broken posts, but no wire) strewn about , and while they no longer served as a barrier, I wondered if they used to say “Landmines beyond this point”. It would only have taken a step or two to find the answer, but I decided I’d better, for once, not let my sense of adventure get the best of me (i.e. my legs or life). Several times I was sooo close to the top, and I just needed to climb across maybe 10 metres of grass to get to the top. I really wanted to. Grrrr. Nervous tension. Are there mines there? I dunno. Landmines are a frigging curse on humanity. You CAN’T tell if they’re there. The ground could explode at any moment, on any step. In fact, lets pretend that we had a nuclear holocaust, and only a few humans survived underground in shelters. They spend the next 100,000 years living there, and evolve into a nice peaceful species. Then they find a door to the surface - wow! a new world! It’s all nice and full of trees and animals up there, so the people move above ground. Only problem is that *sometimes* the ground explodes when you walk on it. They don’t know why. It just does. This is one of the magical ways the earth seems to work in the post-apocalyptic future. Only the Gods know why the ground explodes under your feet… but enough of that train of thought. I did, however, managed to get barked at by every guard dog alive — and everyone has one. The houses here are very meagre, and there is no rhyme/reason to where lower class\middle\upper class and destroyed homes are. Typically you’ll see 5 bombd houses around one rich one. There are bullet holes as big as your fist in most walls. I stumble upon two entrances to bomb shelter caves in the side of the mountain. I try to explore them, but it’s JUST TOO SPOOKY! The only light I have is my camera flash, whose off-ness only seems to emphasize the pitch blackness of the tunnel entrance. All I can hear is dripping and all I can see is black. I run outside; my heart pumping as it hasn’t since that time a thousand years ago when I tried running ;) I decided to be a bit more relaxed and walked across the tops of 3 mountains (on mountain roads, not on the potentially-mined grass), then down into the city. Come back throughout this week for the rest of my Sarajevo adventure!

Comments from my old blog:

mom said: what can i say, at your age you are not supposed to listen to your mom, but there are times when i wish you would. you know, stay in the city, don’t be alone, etc, etc. it sounds very exciting, lots of great memories to look back on. so glad you are back, safe and sound & writing your update. love ya, mom at 2004-03-02 13:10:48

derek said: Mom, the city is IN the mountains. They’re IMpossible to avoid. The grass I almost walked across was only 100 feet from some houses. It’s not like all this craziness/mines are separate from where people live, or out in the boonies or something. at 2004-03-02 13:17:21

mom said: i know, i know, i just haven’t been out of Petrolia in awhile!!!!!hugs, mom at 2004-03-02 23:07:03

(James Trott (UK))[http://www.wildhog.co.uk] said: Derek, there are WAYS of checking for landmines, (not that i know anything about anything of this nature of course) and you can see them for the most part as nearly all have some sort of external moving part so that they could be armed in the first place, generally the exposed part of the mine is very small though. So a keen eye, failing that a few rocks from behind shelter GOOD shelter, is the other, baring in mind a landmine with the right kind of ground can have an effective range of about a 200 metre radius. There is a third method involving soft stepping where if you feel anything under foot you dont put any pressure, its gotta be the daftest idea ever.

I agree though they are a total plague on humanity! The WORSED ones ever, are the ones that are banned (but since when did anyone that lays landmines listen to that?!?!?) i forget what theyre called, but when you trip them they jump up to about 5ft spinning at quite a few RPM, then detonate sending out they’re payload of 5mm ball bearings or steel cubes. You can see them in the movie “Badboys 2” right at the end, those things are an utter monstrosity.

I feel for the man who put his energies into developing something like that. I wonder if he regrets it? at 2004-03-03 09:21:52